# 📚 **SAGA "THE CITY THAT KNOWS NO LIGHT"**## **VOLUME 2: "When the Other Side Ignites"***(extensive, full-length, fictional)*---

# **PROLOGUE - THE FIRST DAY AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD**

Harrowgate awakens peacefully.

Rain. Gray. Quiet.

No one knows that that night, **the city teetered on the brink of collapse**, and Detective Alex Thorne sacrificed his very existence to stop the Spectre system.

No one—except three people:

* **Rowena Vale**, a mystery officer,

* **Alex's sister, Eleanor**, barely alive,

* and **Mason Redd**, a former police officer who has been exploring the tunnels beneath the city for years.

They are the ones who saw Alex being pulled into the void.

And they are the ones who know that **something went wrong**.

Because at dawn, Eleanor sits up in the hospital bed and says only one thing, in an icy voice:

> *"Alex is not alone."*

---

# **CHAPTER 1 — THE SPECTRON AWAKENS**

When Alex opened his eyes on the other side, he experienced a state that humans should not experience.

The world has no color.

Shapes are semi-liquid.

Shadows walk alone, searching for their owners.

Time… ripples like water.

And above it all hangs what look like **human silhouettes in columns of light**, frozen, half-dead, waiting to "return" or "disintegrate."

Among them, Alex sees a familiar face.

**Himself.**

And then he hears *another* voice—the Specter's own:

> *"There must be one Guardian.

> You sacrificed yourself—but that's not enough.

> The system hasn't accepted you.

> The system is waking up."*

And then the **other Alex** appears.

Still indistinct.

Still as if made of fog.

But growing. Gaining definition.

He stares with eyes full of inhuman emptiness.

> *“The city wants me.”*

---

# **CHAPTER 2 — THE CITY BEGINS TO SHAKE**

Rowena receives the first reports:

* clocks go back a minute,

* people appear on cameras twice,

* children talk to their “reflections,”

* dogs howl at the walls.

The Night Watch reports:

> *“The Other Side is leaking.

> Fragments are returning.”*

In the tunnels, however…

Alex's footprints, fresh, wet, as if he had walked there an hour ago.

Except Alex is somewhere else.

--

# **CHAPTER 3 — ELEANOR REMEMBERED TOO MUCH**

Alex's sister begins to see… **parallel versions of people**.

At the grocery store, she sees a cashier—two versions at once:

One smiling.

One is crying, with a wound on her temple.

When asked about this, Rowena hears:

> – These aren't visions.

> – What?

> – These are traces.

> – What?

> – Their lives that could have happened.

> – Parallel realities?

> – Parallel errors.

Eleanor trembles:

> *“The Wraith system is cracking.

> And when it cracks completely… people will start losing themselves.”*

---

# **CHAPTER 4 – THE SECOND ALEX ENTERS THE CITY**

A man appears in Harrowgate:

* tall,

* perfectly calm,

* in a clean coat,

* emotionless.

He walks like someone who knows this city better than the inhabitants.

It's **Alex**, but not the real one.

It's Alex, the one the Wraith system created—a copy created by error.

The Night Watch gives him the codename:

**“Mirror Guardian.”**

The Mirror Guardian walks the streets, and wherever he stands:

* people forget a minute of their lives,

* lamps flicker,

* shadows appear without owners.

He looks at the night market, touches a passerby's face, and says:

> *“I will take you.

> Not by my will.

> By the Will of the City.”*

And disappears, leaving a trail of cold behind him.

--

# **CHAPTER 5 — THE FIRST VICTIM OF VOLUME 2**

Morning.

A man finds a **strange figure** in the park.

It looks like an ash statue, depicting a woman in flight.

But the statue is… anatomically accurate.

Too accurate.

Specialists examine it and discover:

It's **not a sculpture**.

It's a man who has been “frozen” in a single frame of reality.

Alive, but still.

As if his body had forgotten how to move.

Rowena stares in horror:

> – It's not a Specter.

> – So what? – Mason asks.

> – It's someone learning to be a Specter.

> – The… other Alex.

> – Yes.

> – Why did he freeze her?

> – Because that's what worked best for him.

> – What?

> – An attempted kidnapping.

> Failed.

> Like a child learning to walk.

---

# **CHAPTER 6 – A GAME OF TWO SENTINELS**

The real Alex is trying to take over the system.

But the Specter warns him:

> *“The copy is more powerful.

> It was created from error.

> The error has greater rights than the original.”*

Alex sees the beings in the columns of light—people trapped between worlds—beginning to awaken.

And among them…

his own body.

> *“If he returns and you stay here—the world will accept his version as the true one.”*

---

# **CHAPTER 7 — THE NIGHT WHEN THE CITY RIP IN TWO**

At night, Harrowgate divides:

* the streets seem to split,

* houses appear in two versions,

* people see their own doppelgangers,

* animals can't find their way home.

Rowena sends a report to headquarters:

> *"The city is generating duplicate layers.

> We're dealing with a real split."*

Mason shouts:

"People are having panic attacks!"

"This is just the beginning, Mason," Rowena says.

"The beginning of what?!

"Two Harrowgates.

One "ours"...

And one "theirs."him.”

---

# **CHAPTER 8 — MEETING OF TWO SISTERS**

Eleanor comes face to face with… Eleanor.

Another version of herself—pale, alien, with empty eyes.

The other says:

> *“He created me.

> He wants me to replace you.

> To make you disappear.”*

Eleanor runs away, terrified.

Her double vanishes like mist.

Rowena, after analyzing, says:

“He’s trying to rewrite people.”

– Replace them with his own versions?

– Yes, Mason.

– Why?!

– To create a city that will accept him.

– Why does he need that?!

– Because the error wants to exist.

Always.

---

# **CHAPTER 9 — FINALE: “WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO BE ALEX?”**

The real Alex goes to the core of the Spectre—the place where copies of people are kept.

There, they have a conversation with the copy.

The **Mirror Guardian** stands at the abyss of light.

> LS: *“The city needs me.”*

> Alex: “The city needs balance.”

> LS: *“Balance is stagnation.”*

> Alex: “You destroy people.”

> LS: *“I fit them into error. Error is the future.”*

Finally, he asks Alex:

> *“Why do you think you have the right to be real?”*

Alex remains silent.

And then the Specter (the real one, the old one) appears:

> *“He is a mistake.

> I eliminate mistakes.”*

The Mirror Guardian smiles for the first time:

> *“Try.”*

---

# **CHAPTER 10 — THE FIGHT FOR ONE ALEX**

Lights fade, reality shakes, columns of people break.

Alex and his copy fight—not physically, but **on the level of memory**:

* childhood memories,

* the day Eleanor disappeared,

* first day on the police force,

* a fire only he survived,

* his last conversation with his sister.

Who has the right to these memories?

Who is real?

The copy screams:

> *“These aren't your memories!

> These are data!”*

Alex replies:

> *“But I didn't steal them.”*

The system tries to decide which one it will recognize as the Guardian.

--

# **THE FINAL TWIST OF VOLUME 2**

The system makes a decision.

But…

it chooses neither.

Instead, it **creates a third version**.

A nearly perfect being.

Composed of parts of Alex and parts of his copy.

New, dark, powerful.

The new being says:

> *“I am Harrowgate.”*

And disappears into reality.

--

# **EPILOGUE — RETURN OF NO RETURN**

Alex appears in the city.

The real one.

Tired.

With blood on his temple.

He collapses to the ground before Rowena and Eleanor.

He breathes.

He lives.

But he says one thing:

> *“He didn’t leave.

> He was born.”*

Rowena asks:

– Who?

– The one the system deemed perfect.

– What does that mean?

– Harrowgate has a new Guardian.

– Where is he?

– Here.

– He always was.

Rowena and Eleanor look at each other, and Alex finishes:

> *“He’s in the foundations.

> In the cables.

> In the lights.

> In the shadows.

> In each of us.”*

**Last sentence:**

> *“And soon he’ll start creating his own people.”*

---